yves

It's late and I am an old man, better at 4:30 in the morning than 4:30 in the afternoon …

I wish to whatever I were a hobbyist of your level. Ok, I will not wait and try my hand at the 5/8". And by the way, I envy your trailer.

I planned on forging one from round 5/8" for stock up to 11/16". I'll wait for your experiment. As for the resistance, I bent 5/16" cold with it to try. It was fine. With hot stock I do not think that the tenon would give. But as I said, I'll wait.

Glad you like it. It works. I tried it. As to using my idea, let's face it I am probably using somebody else's idea. That is what we do when we keep in touch : we see the good, the bad, the ugly. I am glad that you see the good in this tool.

I rarely make tools. I really needed this one. I enjoyed it. Made from 1/2" mild steel bar. Length 16". To bend stock up to 7/16". The hole was slit and drifted to receive a 5/16" tenon on the 1/2" leg.

Trammels are interesting. There is a collector in France who owns more than a hundred of them and most are quite spectacular. He will be holding an exhibition of some with cross and solar motifs decorations. Having an interest in iron kitchen utensils of New-France, I keep up (as much as work permits) a blog on the subject and there are some articles about trammels. The articles are in French. Here is are links to them : This one is a general article about trammels in France, England, Colonial America and its importance in the days of hearth cooking : https://yvesforge.wordpress.com/2014/10/07/on-ne-pend-plus-rien-en-pendant-la-cremaillere/ This one is about a trammel I bought in France. It would seem to date prior to 1685 : https://yvesforge.wordpress.com/2017/03/24/allongee-au-soleil-elle-me-fit-signe/ This is an analysis of a trammel from the Hotermans Collection in the Stewart museum in Montréal. It dates from 1741 : https://yvesforge.wordpress.com/2016/02/08/une-cremaillere-de-1741/

Good point. Being French there was only one way for me to pronounce it. My point was to get the name of the blacksmith in there. Unless one has a wide market, I do not see an advantage in not having your name appear. I am thinking for instance at "Kim Thomas Ironworks", "Brent Bailey Forge". Easy to remember and to me it creates a link with potential customers that they can call you by your name. As to "Legal Forgery", yes. I had read "Legal Forge" and did not like it. But "forgery" is OK with me.

What about the "Adamr Forge" ?

So common in fact that it was also found in France, for instance. When looking into one kitchen of the colonial era you see in all the kitchens of that era, much in the same way that when you look in a kitchen of to-day with the button produced highs, mediums and lows, you are looking in all the kitchens using the same system.

Where is the "Like" button … Lovely work. I wish I would have thought of that. It brings a smile.

The Hotermans collection was acquired by the Stewart Museum in Montreal (now the McCord-Stewart Museum) in 1971. Here is a time line about the collection. This is taken from an article by By Richard J. Wattenmaker Wattenmaker's article (pdf) may be found here : file:///Users/yvescouture/Downloads/54656ac.pdf The original article on the acquisition of the collection by Stewart and refered to by Wattenmaker (in french (pdf)), may be found here : file:///Users/yvescouture/Downloads/57937ac.pdf. Lecoq's book's title is "Les Objets de la vie domestique, Ustensiles en fer de la cuisine et du foyer des origines au 19e siècle". Very few utensils are part of the permanent exhibition at the museum on the Île Sainte-Hélène. This fork, for instance, is part of it. I wrote an article on it : https://yvesforge.wordpress.com/2014/02/06/une-fourchette-dhonneur-du-xviiio-siecle/ The greatest part of the collection is stored in the museum's storerooms. The more than fifty articles in my blog (https://yvesforge.wordpress.com/) are almost all about specific utensils and implements of this collection. I have much more material to write about … as work permits. Not to highkjack this thread, if you would have other questions, you can PM me and I would gladly get back to you as soon as I can.

The way I put it : "I live with my errors".

Hotermans was a collector who came on the French market some time after Le Secq des Tournelles. For the later, money was no object and all his time, his fortune and his ferocious energy were devoted to the enlargement of his collection. And he was choosy. Let us not forget that Le Secq filled a church in Rouen with his objects (see d'Allemagne's "Decorative antique Ironwork", all objects of this collection) and most of them great art work. It seems like Le Secq picked up all the best and left the rest to people like Hotermans (who are not very numerous …). That would partly explain why ordinary objects seem easy to come by in the Hotermans collection. As to the "normal ones", the "good enough ones", I came to believe that they are still to be found in France, not necessarily because they were prized and preserved. The explanation I offer is that there are areas in France that exist for 500, 600 years if not more. They became "remote areas" when they were left behind by economic development (whole villages have been deserted or almost, for quite a long time, some are for sale) and the Lescqs and Hotermans of this world have not gone to them.

I am about 15% in the analysis of the Hotermans collection, more than 2700 iron utensils and implements from the 17th and 18th centuries for cooking on the hearth. Not having the experience some of you enjoy, I was very surprised early on when I found an object that did not have the quality of the others. I had thought, should I say "of course", that the blacksmiths of the 17th and 18th centuries were the models to turn to and that they could not have turned out shoddy products. And then I stopped being surprised and shocked. Some implements have truly been forged in such a way that the iron was transformed in a precious metal. Some, because of all the reasons given by jlpservicesinc, and others, like the client did not want to pay or could not afford a quality finish, were put out quite roughly. I own a trammel I found in Brittany. I enjoy it for all sorts of reasons. But it is not perfect. The apprentices were the ones who forged the every day trammels for ordinary people, the smith putting his skills to design and forge the trammels ordered by the nobles and the bourgeois. My trammel was certainly forged by the apprentice. And I like to imagine that the smith pointed to the roughness of the tree symbol chiseled in the hook, the strap that is not perfectly blended after welding … and, again I imagine, when the apprentice said he would bring it back to the fire to finish the welding, the smith probably said something like, "No, it's OK. for the amount he is paying, this will be good enough". And that trammel was good enough to work over the flames for more than 150 years. As pointed out, books depict the best quality objects possible ; the most desirable are in the museums and exhibited by them. The shoddy stuff never reaches the book pages and stays in the drawers, at the bottom of the boxes on the shelves. So of course I thought that the smiths of the past were perfect. And then reality came in with experience : they were not. They lived in the real world and the real world, often, only asks for what is good enough. Thomas Powers, by the way, you are right, this discussion is quite enjoyable.

JHCC, you should have said it at the top of this thread. All would have been said. Love it.

Of course. And I agree with the entirety of your comment for which I thank you. My point was and still is that we could surely find assymetries, inconsistencies where there ought not to be, . However, I will argue that even with all these defects, in these cases, the work of the blacksmith has changed an ordinary metal in a precious one and that this is all the perfection that one can expect in this world. More time ? More money ? Maybe the "defects" you point to could have been avoided, maybe the services of a more expensive, more proficient (plus habile) blacksmith could have been retained. There is the best that I can do and the best that can be done. To search for the second of the bests, one must look to the work of people who have done the best that they could do. There is no way out of it. And I do not believe it is a problem. If some see perfection in the output on the CNC machines some like you and I will call them imperfect for they are, as you aptly say, boring and sterile. All in all, if ever I get to that even though limited level of proficiency I have seen in some of the locks of theYellin collection and to that of some of our contemporaries, I'll be very glad to say that "it's good enough" and call it a day. Or is it at that particular point that I will wait longer, a while longer to call it a day?

With Thomas Powers, I must disagree. To be right you would have to qualify as imperfect works like the following : the gril from the 14th century of the Palazzo Publico in Siena, the gril of the forecourt of the Chateau de Versailles (circa 1680), the hinges on the doors of Notre-Dame in Paris, those that were deemed to have been forged by the hand of satan or with the help of the same, I remember not quite the legend, in the 12th century was it? Those hinges that were reproduced or restored by Boulanger under the supervision of Viollet-LeDuc in the middle of the 19th century, the Washington Cathedral gate for the Children's Chapel by Yellin, 1934, the wrought iron door for the pavilion of the magazine "L'Illustration" at the 1925 Exposition by Edgar Brandt, some if not most of the locks from the Yellin collection, a collection he put together to show to his designers and blacksmiths how things ought to be done, what quality and, yes, perfection, was, (here are two of them, (photographs by yours truly)) Some of Alfred Habermann's work, closer to us, Most of Claudio Bottero's work presently. Of course the perfection you would have to refer to to qualify as imperfect the works in this extremely short and random list must be other-wordly. As such it is unattainable ever in this world. I am sure we would agree however that the works in this list define the level of quality that is good enough, that this is the level of quality one would aim for. If perfection is not of this world, how can we use it to evaluate earthly wrought iron work? Why bother with it, we do not even know what perfect other worldly iron work looks like. Let's aim for this "good enough" that we can see and try to reach.

I hate it, really hate it when I have to say it's good enough. To me it means that it is not quite what I aimed at but this is the best I can do . Oh, I can sell it. The client and the people who see the object will not spot the defect. But I know it's there it. I feel it as a sort of defeat when I have to say that. For instance, I am finishing an exterior handrail. It will be held to the concrete with angles with a scrolled vertical part. I see that 1/8" to 3/16"or so difference in the position of the tip of the imperfect scroll compared to the first one that is exactly what I wanted (I forge the scrolls without the use of a scroll tool). I know that if I try to make it perfect, I run further risks of changing some other aspect. So I have to decide that it is good enough. I hate that. I have another commission for an exterior handrail. I will give in and make a scroll tool for that one. My scrolls will be better, hopefully. But I do fear that I might have to say again that "It is good enough".

Very enjoyable video and the best looking soap holder I've ever seen. Working with beautiful tools enhances the pleasure of the work day. Thanks.

I always wear my prescription safety glasses (which are cheaper than the other ones). And just this Monday, I got a face shield. What got me was this piece of hot that flew off the metal when I hammered it and hit my cheek just below the glasses. I had resisted thinking this equipment would be a bother, that it would be heavy, uncomfortable. It is neither of these.

Keep on staying awake …

This is a very good idea. Next week I will have a final meeting about an exterior handrail. Since I go through the exercise of forging some elements of these commissions, those that seem touchy to me with regards to the techniques involved or the shape and/or the texture, the decoration, when I am satisfied and ready to forge the job, I bring the "samples" to the client. That is the moment where I ask for 50% of the price. Yes it is a very good idea … would it only be because I do it …

No problem. I and a bunch of us out there (and in here) say "enclume" Charles, please, am I to understand what you mean when you say "a bit of a drawl" the same way I understood the young lady when she said "I am a little pregnant"?

Obviously, my knots are not a quick solution though I must say they are easier to tie than would appear. The time involved is in the tightening.

Glad you people like it. Slag : I did not feel the necessity to make it fire proof. I still do not. The elastic bands burn on the floor when they cut off. And they do that much too quickly. Never had them burn on the job. Tommytaptap : the sound of the handle hitting the vise is a noise. The sound of the anvil is a song … ThomasPowers : the other end of the handle will get a knot made from a piece of rawhide (have it in front of me).